Dear Editor,
The emancipation of the African ancestors was not a whim of the colonial masters, when they suddenly had an awakening, or a renaissance, or a sudden inspiration of conscience about the worst human bondage in mankind’s history. Emancipation was the struggle of the ancestors, their revolutions, escapes and uprisings, making enslavement an unprofitable venture. And yes, their cries to the heavens being answered at the right time.
The peoples who came after owe a great debt to the African ancestors who laid their bones in the soil before them, and in the Atlantic. When my ancestors came, they had a wharf to land on and a road to walk on, and lands ploughed and cleared by human hands under the scourge of the whip.
For some reason, I feel the pain of those people and I shed many tears. They even taught my ancestors the ways of the white man and his language; they were our first midwives and nurses, and still are. My ancestors suffered but the sufferings of the African ancestors were even worse – incomparable.
Is it any wonder that the United Nations has declared this year as ‘The Year of Peoples of African Descent’ given all of the above, plus the wisdom of the ancestors, their strength, their scientific discoveries now and in ancient times, and their great history – is it any wonder? Truly my African brothers and sisters and all of us Guyanese must reflect, respect, honour and thank most divinely, the ancestors of African descent.
Yours faithfully,
Haji Roshan Khan
